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Scrabble With The Stars spells success for PAL Canada charity

Fern Lindzon, best known as a jazz pianist and composer, is a two-time winner of the Scrabble With the Stars charity events.

The Juno-nominated jazz artist/composer is a two-time winner of the annual charity event Scrabble With the Stars so, at this year’s event on Monday at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, Lindzon will act as a Scrabble expert, helping players struggling to find the highest-scoring word on the board.

It’s for a good cause, supporting Performing Arts Futurecare, a new chapter of PAL Canada (Performing Arts Lodges of Canada), which provides affordable housing for retired artists and workers in the performing arts industry.

“I was thinking about the fact that I’ve been a jazz musician and the fact that I really love Scrabble, and in what ways they’re kind of similar,” Lindzon said. “You have to be extremely in-the-moment to do either. You have to be right there in the game, always thinking and always thinking ahead, and reacting really quickly to what gets thrown at you.

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“(Scrabble) is kind of like playing a jazz solo where you’re right in the moment and you’re reacting to the band around, and you’re creating something out of the materials that you have,” she added.

A long-time member of the Toronto Scrabble Club — believed to be the world’s longest running — Lindzon said she regularly scores an average of 400 points a game, though she’s hit close to 700. Her biggest score to date? The word “depicked,” which used all seven of her tiles plus one on the board and hit two triple word scores. Final tally: 203 points.

Scrabble With the Stars, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for PAL Toronto’s 205-unit apartment building on The Esplanade, features a diverse group of 40 celebrities, including former NFLer and Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George, jazz singers Matt Dusk and Jackie Richardson, Sharon Hampson of Sharon, Lois & Bram, and actors R.H. Thomson and Jayne Eastwood.

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Lindzon, who’s released three albums and has written both lyrics and music, said composition plays a role in being a Scrabble ace.

“Arranging and writing music often feels like a puzzle. But Scrabble isn’t about just about words. It’s about the strategy and it’s almost more mathematical. Words are just your playing pieces,” Lindzon said.

Lindzon is particularly pleased that PAL Canada is seeking to expand its services to allow retired artists and arts workers to remain in their homes and communities.

“I’m really moved by this cause and particularly this year’s goal, which is to raise money to be able to provide assisted living for those members of the community who are no longer able to look after themselves,” Lindzon said.

“It’s not easy to make a living as a Canadian performer so (to help) people from the classical world — opera, jazz or dance — or theatre, television or movies, it feels like a good thing to do,” she added.

“It’s just a tragedy to see highly respected Canadian performers isolated when they are in their final years.”

Lindzon and jazz musician George Koller, who’s also a fine Scrabble player, will perform two shows on Sunday at Jazz Bistro on Victoria St. ahead of Monday’s charity event.

Scrabble With the Stars takes place May 14 at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, 1 Front St. E. Doors open at 6 p.m. See scrabblewiththestars.ca for information on how to contribute.

Correction - May 15, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said the funds raised from the Scrabble With the Stars event will go to support PAL Toronto. In fact, it is earmarked for Performing Arts FutureCare, a chapter of PAL Canada.

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